


This is the First Thing I Remember

by troiing



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Dubious Consent, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:25:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Awakening AU: the vampire queen succeeds in awakening her court and takes Helen as a blood slave (as per Angie's request).</p>
<p>"One thing you can say for her: she’s not sharing you, and you’re glad of it.  Mostly because Afina takes what she needs and lets you be.</p>
<p>For now, anyway.  But her voice, it’s always ringing in your head: 'I’ll teach you to like it.' "</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the First Thing I Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags. Very psychological, maybe a little Stockholm Syndromish, a little non-con touching, dubious consent at the end, but nothing terribly graphic in the fic.
> 
> Based around an extended scene from the episode, which is mostly just a line from Afina: "Darling, I'll teach you to like it."

You don’t want to think about what happens to Nikola, trapped in his shaft of a cell, and you’re even less inclined to think about what happens to the _world._ You know nothing of his wellbeing, and nothing of what goes on outside.

Really, all you know is Afina’s breath on your neck.

One thing you can say for her: she’s not sharing you, and you’re glad of it. Mostly because Afina takes what she needs and lets you be.

For now, anyway. But her voice, it’s always ringing in your head: _“I’ll teach you to like it.”_

In the moment, you do like it.

Logic tells you that vampires should have some way of silencing their prey, anesthetic in their saliva or something of the sort, but nothing prepares you for the heady feeling that overcomes your senses the first time she tangles her fingers into your hair and sinks her teeth into your flesh. It hurts for about a second—a second in which you choke down an outcry, and then most everything seems to go numb. The pleasure centers in your brain, your neurons are firing so rapidly you whimper while all of you spins lazily downward, and the only dose of reality you have to hang on to is your absolute hatred and the anger that stems from it.

She bleeds you to your limit that first time, and you wake strewn across a chaise in a darkened room. It takes you a while to do so much as sit upright, but after you’ve successfully managed that position for a while, massaging your face the whole time, a voice that’s already far too familiar cuts through the darkness, and you realize that she’s perched in a chair across the room from you.

“Good; you’re awake,” she purrs, canting her head at you. “You need a bath.” And her head tilts the other direction, to one of two doorways. “Just through there. Give us your clothes first.”

You’re feeling as stubborn as ever, and you clench your jaw at her. “Why should I?”

“Because you stink. And because humans never did have much taste in fashion. Don’t worry; I have much nicer things.”

“Keep them,” you growl, not daring to move from your position just yet. You feel strong here, sitting in the position you’ve been in for a few minutes; standing up, you know, is sure to cause a dizzy spell.

“You’d rather go naked?” is the droll repartee.

“I’d rather you choked,” you snarl, fingers clenching against the arm of the chaise. “Where’s Nikola?”

“In his trap, of course,” she answers flatly, evidently bored of the subject before you ever broached it, judging by the way she’s examining her nails.

“I want him freed.”

“I want you bathed.”

“And I’m really to believe that you’ll free him if I take a bath?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t say that,” she sighs, definitely, _supremely_ bored of the subject now. “Your mongrel, feelings though you may have for him, has no place here. Now: bathe.”

You’d resist on principle, but whether or not you take a bath seems like a rather silly fight to have, so you slowly, very slowly, push yourself upright, steadying yourself on the arm of the chaise and a nearby table. When you’re confident that you can take a few steps, you make your way towards the connected chamber, forcing your feet to move steadily one after the other.

“Clothes,” she reminds you flatly when you near the doorway.

You face her willfully. You have to undress anyway though, and you’ve been around long enough that being naked in front of someone doesn’t have quite the effect it would have when you were younger. It’s an act of defiance in and of itself when you strip out of the jacket, the blouse, slowly removing your clothes and hefting them her way when you’re through with them. The fact that she hardly bothers to do so much as bat an eyelid when your jacket lands across her arm infuriates you, but not as much as the pointed yawn and the way she flicks it off of herself and onto the floor, and your pants follow with more force, but you over-tax yourself in the process, stumbling forward and regaining your footing a few steps later. The sneer inspires more ire, and for that, you let your clothes scatter through the room before storming into the bathing chamber and lowering yourself into a veritable pool of water. Earth warmed, dug straight down into the stone, it’s got to be five feet across, eight long, and the hot water’s chest deep.

If you weren’t so intent on being furious at nothing and everything, you’d allow yourself to be comforted.

You don’t dare dip under the water, not in the state you’re in, so you take your time washing your body in the pool, examining the chamber, watching the faint signs that the water moves slowly from one end of the pool to the other.

When you emerge, there’s no sign of your clothing. Your eyes first lock on Afina, then on the dress draped across the seat you’d previously occupied.

“You’re very beautiful,” she says, and somehow even what seems like it should be a compliment sounds utterly bored. “This dress will be much more suitable.”

“Keep it,” you say, and although you knew you wouldn’t see them again, “I want my old clothes.”

“My, you do sound like a—there’s a phrase somewhere—ah yes, a ‘broken record’. What utterly primitive technology. Humans never could do anything on their own.”

“Nikola.”

“You’re in no position to bargain.”

You feel your chin rise, your nostrils flair, as you realize that she’s right, and that every time you try, she’ll win. All the odds are in her favor, and you can fight her for nothing, or you can play along.

You decide not to give her any more victories for the time being.

* * *

Eventually, you allow yourself some curiosity that you never expected to feel.

For all that she’s making a habit of feeding off of you, Afina’s barely a fraction as vicious as you expected. Really, part of it’s hidden under the casual way she treats everything, as if it’s only natural that she’ll always be on top, but the fact of the matter is, when she doesn’t have her fangs buried in your neck, she really does let you be, for the most part. She treats you with that haughty boredom, taunts a little, and leers a lot, but so long as you stay in line she leaves you alone.

Not that you’re very interested in staying in line, but once you get over that first bout of stubborn resistance, you’re willing to observe and learn for a while.

The problem is, it’s hard to pinpoint her motives in leaving you to your own devices. You’re well-fed, for obvious reasons, though the delicacies she manages to provide raise more questions. You have your own opinions regarding the clothes she provides, because you’ve certainly seen her kind wandering around without cleavage and legs hanging out, but you’re not willing to go there just now. To your knowledge, the chamber you’re in is yours, and so-called greatest race or not, you can’t imagine every chamber here has such a bath, or such comfortable furnishings. You’ll even begrudgingly admit that the bed might be more comfortable than your own.

What was your own. You know, before you brought Nikola on this little field trip and reawakened a sleeping vampire queen who then as good as killed one of your oldest friends and reawakened her court for the purposes of taking over the world again.

Needless to say, you don’t let your anger fade any time soon.

And yet, you’re caving more and more to the ecstasy that floods you when her mouth’s against your skin, and although it’s not something you realize, or maybe it’s just not something you’re willing to admit to yourself, she does know. You realize this when, after a few weeks, you finally round on her to demand why she’s treating you this way.

“What way?” she asks, giving the impression that she’s not paying you any attention whatsoever.

“Leaving me to my own devices until you get a little peckish,” you spit, arching a brow. “Not that I mind being left alone, by any means, but you’re no saint. You clearly have a motive.”

There’s never any mirth in her smile, even when something pleases her, and you rather hate it. And there she is, giving you that toothy smile again before striding over to you. “Helen…” she drawls, and you stand firm against the hand stroking your cheek. “It’s about taste. You see, fear tastes good. Anger tastes bad. Pleasure—pleasure tastes _delicious._ Unfortunately, you tend to stay rather angry,” she says a little chidingly, circling around you. She’s never really touched you except to manhandle you around when you were feeling particularly uncooperative, but you seem to have awakened something, and she traces a finger down your bare cleavage, and you rather wish you hadn’t asked. You steel your jaw at the belated realization that she’s been treating you so distantly in some sort of skewed attempt to _train_ you. Of course. You inhale sharply, and she matches it with a mirthless snort of laughter. “See? You’re angry again. But—” and with this, she shoves you forward with the flat of her palm between your shoulderblades, making you stumble face first into the bed several feet away before you can catch yourself, “—you _will_ learn to like it.”

You roll onto your elbows as quickly as you can, but she’s still where she was, in the middle of the floor. “Good luck,” you growl, and she keeps smiling that mirthless smile at you.

“I wouldn’t have told you that if I didn’t _know_ you’d give in.” And you’re shocked and even more infuriated—with yourself as much as her—when she adds in her most tragic tone: “They always do, sooner or later. And we have the rest of eternity.”

She’s right; she wouldn’t have told you if she weren’t sure of it. Eventually, you’re going to cave.

* * *

The first time your heart flutters with anticipated pleasure, you reel around and punch her on principle. She laughs and nearly bleeds you dry, and this time, you awaken in a heap on the stone floor with a massive knot on the side of your head. No more coddling. You urge yourself to believe it’s some sort of new psychological ploy, but you know you feel hopeless, you know your connection to the outside world has been cut off for months, and you know that even you can’t hold out forever.

From there, you spiral downward. One day, you realize belatedly she’d trailed her fingers up your revealed thigh while embedding her teeth in your wrist, and that you’d let yourself enjoy it. On another, she straddles you while she drinks you down, and you can’t even be bothered to fight her. When you wake from a delirium with the recollection of rocking your hips into her fingers and peaking just before her teeth broke the flesh of your thigh, you know you’re lost. The hatred’s always bubbling under the surface, but the desire, the pleasure, and the utter helplessness of your situation win out.

When that happens, you suddenly belong to all of them.

And when that happens, you quickly become the vampire court’s favorite whore.


End file.
